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Pluralistic: "If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"
(pluralistic.net)
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this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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What would you call it if you buy a piece of art and hang it on your wall, then a couple months later the company that sold you the art comes into your home, takes the art away, and says you don't own it anymore?
If enough companies do that people are going to stop paying for art.
That company is also going to show you the agreement you signed that says they can do that, which is the current situation with digital goods. People are still buying them.
Nobody said otherwise. The argument isn't "this is illegal", it's "this is bullshit."
And the argument being put forward is that people shouldn't be.
If that was a normal purchase, then that’s clearly theft.
If it was art leasing, there’s probably a long contract with details about a situation like this. No matter what the contract says, the local law might still disagree with that, so it can get complicated. The art company might be violating their own contract, although it is unlikely. The company might be within the rights outlined in the contract, but they might still be breaking the law. You need a lawyer to figure it out.
Well it was sure we fuck presented as a normal purchase. Adding legal text to where you sign the cheque saying "you may come to my house and take this away at any time" doesn't make it less bullshit.
The world is full of bad contracts. It’s truly sad that we decided to accept them without making numerous alterations here and there.
It's not possible to make changes to a digital contract. The only option is to not make the "purchase" and acquire it elsewhere.
More people should let the service provider know that their contract sucks and that they refuse to pay for the service under the proposed conditions. Most people don’t even read the contract, so I don’t think the situation is going to improve any time soon.
People are pirating products that can be purchased and owned.
People are also "buying" products that are being taken away from them by the license holders of the purchased work. The article explains this with several examples in different markets.
Still people share digital goods indiscriminately, even those which are possible to buy and own.
Of course they do, there will always be people who pirate. Most people dont mind paying for stuff and services if it respects them.
There is Baldurs Gate 3 for example, you can buy it on GOG without DRM, and I highly doubt it made a dent in their sales.
Because the majority of people do not pirate because they truly believe they are doing something morally good. That's laughable.
If it really was about going against the licensing schemes these people would all buy on GoG. Instead they rather pirate the games and use Steam for the rest.
The majority of people pirates stuff because they feel entitled to it and are greedy and because it works and is easy to do. They do not respect those who put the work into the music or the movies or the games.
What makes me so angry about it is the hypocrisy. Since these are often the same people who are virtue signalling about how capitalism is bad since employers are too greedy to pay good wages.
The irony is quite strong in this.
Yeah i agree, that most people do not pirate because of morality, but because pirating is more convenient meanwhile being way cheaper, you said it yourself. I do not watch a whole lot of movies or shows, but for example if i could buy Arcane, I would, but instead I can only watch it if I buy a Netflix subscription. I dont like this arbitrary limitation to be honest, you could buy movies back in the day.
For games, it is the case, because steam is actually a good service. People got what they wanted from Baldurs Gate 3 plus it is on a service which gives you tons of features. For example netflix on the other hand just limits how you consume content instead of enabling you other features.
One more thing, when Netflix was the only streaming service, people actually paid for it. Now that it is worse, pricier and there are more competing streaming services, it is way more convenient to pirate.
People are also shoplifting from stores. That's irrelevant to what is being discussed here
Then the example about the painting is also irrelevant.
The example about the painting was analogous to what the link article is talking about.